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My StoryI wr
My Story
I write lots of stories. Does anyone want to see one? I have a particular one in mind. I won't post all of it because it might get stolen, but if you want to see some of it, let me know and I'll post some!
submitted by Lena G., age 11
(January 18, 2009 - 6:40 pm)
(January 18, 2009 - 6:40 pm)
I do want to read a good story!
(January 19, 2009 - 10:47 am)
Thanks! Anyone else? Admin., this isn't a criticism, but why do new threads always drop to the end of the line?
So sorry about that! There's still an occasional bug in the system. We're trying to fix it. New threads, and the threads that have the most recent responses, should spring to the top of the list. But sometimes they go to the very end
. You can, if this helps, reorder the threads by clicking on the headings at the top of the columns.
--Admin
(January 21, 2009 - 9:08 am)
Thanks, Admin.!
(January 21, 2009 - 4:59 pm)
Okay, here's the first section of my story. For safety reasons I won't post it all, so I hope it's not too gripping. If you have any critiques, please let me know. I'm always looking to improve. And if you hate it, don't be shy. Just be respectful.
Stella:
“Do you have everything you brought with you?” I ask my daughter. She nods.
“Let’s check anyway.”
She shrugs off her little pink backpack with the daisy chain and proceeds to empty out of her backpack everything a four-year-old girl needs to stay occupied at a gourmet restaurant. Scribble pads, stickers, markers -
“Looks like you have everything,” I say.
But her huge green eyes are growing even huger, and her innocent face full of baby fat begins to crumple. “Daddy, I don’t have Stella!”
“Oh no.” Stella is even more important to my daughter than ballet stickers. “We’ll have to go back and look for her tomorrow.”
“No!” She clings to my arm. “We got to go now! They might throw her away!”
As Stella is only an empty vitamin bottle to strangers, I can’t argue with that. But still, I am tired, and have many papers to grade before bedtime…
Then I see her little face staring urgently at me, and I crumple inside. She looks just like a miniature version of my wife, who has passed away just a week ago. I am a single parent now. I cannot fail my daughter.
“All right,” I say. “Get into the car.”
What do you think?
(January 22, 2009 - 11:48 am)
Wow!! That's really good!! Are you going to post more?
(January 22, 2009 - 12:49 pm)
Oh! That's good!! :D:D I like it! :D:D:D
(January 22, 2009 - 3:03 pm)
hi i really like it i entered for the story contest about the monster i hope i get in i will tell you a little if you like
(January 24, 2009 - 8:43 pm)
I think it is very good. I love the word choice and how you state what it is to other people. I think one day you could be an amazing author. I, too, am writing my own story. Keep on writing!
(February 2, 2009 - 8:54 pm)
Good luck with your story, Leah! :)
(February 3, 2009 - 7:05 pm)
that was really good
I like the whole idea of "Stella"
Its sad,a little,but not too sad
(February 5, 2009 - 9:40 pm)
Please? I like it! You can even copywrite it by just typing "Copywrited by Lena G., 1-22-09" (or whatever the date is if you post it).
(January 22, 2009 - 2:50 pm)
I would like to post more...Okay, just a little more. It's pretty long and I haven't even finished it anyway. The story takes place over a bunch of years. I'll finish this year.
Snow is blowing gently as we get into the car, but in minutes I have the heating blasted so high there is steam on the windows. We drive by radio towers and burger places, then onto the lonely highway without even the homey light of Christmas trees in the windows to light our way.
I turn on the radio. Some interview with a skier. I turn it off.
“You all right back there?” I ask my daughter.
She nods through her woebegone tears, and I stare into the headlights of the car in front of me, remembering…
“Daddy, can I have this empty one?” my daughter, who was rifling through my wife’s collection of vitamin jars, asked, holding up one with stars bordering the words: EPA-Extra.
I looked over at her eager, rosy face, so unaware of the impending danger that involved our family. Other times I would say, ‘That’s just a dirty empty bottle.’ But my wife, who was the only one in our house taking vitamins, surely wouldn’t mind. She’d say, ‘The girl has an imagination. Let her have the bottle.’ And since she was in the hospital, I had to imagine what she would say. So I nodded and said, ‘Take it.’
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, running up to me and placing a quick kiss on my cheek. “See, it’s a girl, and her name is Stella, Daddy, Stella! Isn’t that a pretty name? She’s an orphan, but she is wonderfully sweet and I have adopted her. I will be her mother.”
I smiled in spite of myself. And from that day on I never saw her without Stella.
“Daddy, we’re here!”
I help my daughter out of the car. “Come on, let’s go find Stella,” I say in a fake excited tone.
The neon sign for Marion’s Gourmet Dining twinkles above us. I enjoy their food, but my daughter didn’t like it as much. I realize now that maybe she would’ve been happier at a fast-food diner, but now isn’t the time for that. We have to find Stella.
The cold wind blows us inside to the warmness, where the jolly owner who waited on us before greets us. “Well, back again?”
“We lost Stella!” my daughter pipes up.
“Who?” the waiter asks, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“A – an empty EPA-Extra bottle with stars on it,” I explain. “She pretends it’s her daughter.”
The owner’s look of confusion does not fade, but he nods. “I will go ask around,” he says. “Now, in the meantime, have a lollipop.” He gives my daughter a lollipop and leads us to a table.
“Do you think he’ll find her, Daddy?” my daughter asks me, licking her lollipop.
I sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe Stella’s looking for me,” my daughter says. A grin settles on her face and she looks off into the distance. I know it – her ‘imagining’ face. “I know she is. Stella loves me.”
Looking at her, I remember how much I longed to raise a family of my own when I was younger, and to have moments sitting with my child at a restaurant. But in my imagination, I always had both a wife and whatever companion my child wanted, with me. If I cannot find Stella, will I have failed my child? And if I fail my child, will I have failed myself?
After fifteen long minutes, the owner comes out, shaking his head sadly. “We could not find the bottle, but I promise I will contact you if she shows up.”
I give him my phone number while my daughter frantically looks around her, hoping that Stella will appear. But when I am finished with the owner, and Stella has not appeared, she begins to cry.
“Oh, child,” the owner says. “Here, have another lollipop.” My daughter takes it without looking at it.
“She has to be somewhere,” she says through her tears.
But she is not anywhere near us, for certain. I take her out of the restaurant, carrying her so she will not slip on the ice or the newly fallen snow, and buckle her into her car seat as we start again on the lonely road home.
I want to say some of the words of comfort people said to me at my wife’s funeral, but I cannot bring myself to say ‘Stella loved you; I know she did,’ when Stella is only an empty vitamin bottle.
All the way home, my daughter stares out the steamed windows, not even licking the lollipop the owner has given her.
-Copyright Lena G., January 22, 2009 (thanks, Allison!)
If there are any critiques, please share them.
(January 22, 2009 - 6:17 pm)
I really like that! It's so well written. I especially like how you're sort of comparing the daughter's loss of her "Stella" to the dad's bigger loss. It's exremely well written! Good job! :)
(January 23, 2009 - 3:26 pm)
Thanks!
(January 23, 2009 - 5:35 pm)
Anyone want to see another year?
(January 24, 2009 - 1:45 pm)